Ryan Brown

(b. 2 May 1962, USA)

Born in Lodi, Ohio, 2 May 1962, Ryan Brown graduated from Norwayne High School in 1980. He grew up on a farm watching Astroboy cartoons and Ultraman TV shows in the 1960s and 1970s. His favorite movies are Gamera or Godzilla films and his favorite comic book character is The Man-thing. His favorite music is early 1980s heavy metal.

Ryan started his career in high school by drawing t-shirts for fund-raising events and then moved on to creating artwork for local businesses in the area. He self-published comic books and wrote and drew a weekly comic strip for the Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper which was collected into a comic book from Mirage Studios.

Ryan was hired by the creators of the 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' as an artist in 1985 and shortly after moved to Northampton Massachusetts. There Ryan worked on the 'Tales of the Teenage Mutant Turtles' comic book title and produced licensing art for many TMNT products. He then had an idea to helm the new 'Archie Turtles' comic series and was handed the reigns with his writing partner Dean Clarrain. Ryan grouped some of his TMNT action figure characters together for the 'Mighty Mutanimals' and with Steve Murphy created a new Archie Comic book series. Mirage Studios also published his 'Halloweiners' comic book in 1989.

In 1990 Ryan's comic book idea 'The Wild West C.O.W.-Boys of Moo Mesa' was animated for saturday morning ABC television.It spawned a host of licensed products and aired for two seasons (1992-93 & 1993-94). The series also ran on the Disney Channel for three years.

Ryan has worked producing books for top publishers and has illustrated characters from Disney, Warner Bros. and Seasame Street. Such characters as Mickey Mouse, Bugs Bunny, Big Bird, the Flintstones and even characters from Star Wars have flowed from his pen.

Brown still illustrates children's books and has co-founded a new children's book company called Coloralot Books. Coloralot also produces a line of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles coloring books and is ready to launch an entire line of quality children's publications.

One of Ryan's early Mirage Studios characters has been resurrected for the new Ninja Turtles TV show. It is his mutant alligator/crocodile character Leatherhead.